But of all the foreign tours which the Royal couple enjoyed together, certainly the greatest and most memorable was that which, in the early months of 1869, took them from Denmark vi Berlin, Vienna and Italy through Egypt to Suez, Con-<stantinople pud the Crimes, and, home by Athens. In Egypt, which the Prince himself now visited for the second time, the Royal party (including the Duke of Sutherland) were entertained in the most magnificant manner, and the voyage up the Nile was replete with all kinds of interest. They inspected all the works of the still unfinished Suez Canal, with M. de Lesseps himself as their guide, and the Prince opened the sluices of a dam which let the waters of the Mediterranean into the dried up Ritter Lakes, But splendid as had been the reception of the royal -party at Cairo, it was outshadowed by that which awaited them at Constantinople, and which recalled the splendonrs and gorgeous hospitalities of the Arabian Nights." The great and epoch-marking event of the visit was a state dinner offered by the Sultan to the Prince and Princess—the first banquet ever given to Christians by the Father of the Faithfal. "Moreover, as a very special favour, the Princess and one of her ladies were admitted to the Harem, where they remained for an hour and a-half chatting with the fair houris in the Temple of Turkish bliss, while the Prince smoked a friendly. pipe with the Padishah himself outside. On leaving Stamboul the Royal party proceeded to Sebastopol, where General, as well as Dr. (now Sir) W. H. Russell, the picturesque historian of the Crimean war, they visited the ever-memorable battle. fields which had been the graves of about 100,000 mien.
As Dr. Russell had been the chronicler of this Eastern tour of the Princes and Princess of Wales, so hie also was to prove the most eloquent and authoritative historian of the next great journey undertaken by the Heir to the Crown—his historic visit to the Indian Empire of his royal mother in the winter of 1875-6—a visit which extended over six mouths and brought home to millions of our darker fellow-subject, ina personal and pleasant manner, the reality of British rule. The Prince himself had long. cherished the idea of doing in Hindustan what he had already dono in Canada, and his wish—' the dream of his life," as he said—found a very warm supporter in Mr. Disraeli, now at the helm of power, who regarded the Prince's tour as but step preliminary to his own secret ambition of posing by the side of Warwick—not asa "*King-maker," butes a Kaisari-Hind-maker," that is to say of procuring the proclamation of the Queen as Empress of India.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.